Venal by Regret
by AnimeSiren
Summary: They all have their reasons for being what they are, and for not walking out of the door. But not all of them realize they have a choice. Eames should have been out of here five months ago. Arthur leads the life he thinks he deserves. Prostitution AU.


**Venal by Regret**

_Enjoy_

**Pairing: **Arthur/Eames (Naturally.) and background Ariadne/Cobb  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort-ish, Romance, and some random humor because come one it's A&E  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Rated R, this part definitely.  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Language, dub-con/non-con, trauma  
><strong>Summary: <strong>They all have their reasons for being where they are, and for not walking out of the door. But not all of them realize they have a choice. Eames should have been out of here five months ago; Arthur became one of them five months ago. Arthur doesn't know how to not punish himself, so he leads his life the way he thinks he deserves.

**Beta:** columbine-and-asphodel, a very prolific BBC Sherlock and Sherlock Holmes writer. She is very competent and a pleasure to work with. Any mistakes that are left are from my meddling. Thanks for your hard work, darling!

**X-_X-_X**

Arthur only began to realize he was clenching the door casing so hard when the uneven grain of the wood began to cut into his hand. His breath stuttered and he felt the noise that was echoing up from downstairs overwhelm him. Shouts, laughter, drinks clinking, it was the same as on any other night. It was par for the course at a place like this.

He tried to breathe in deeply, tried to calm the shallow breaths that were crossing his lips. His gaze was lingering down at the other end of the poorly lit hall. He was waiting for something to happen. Arthur let out as deep a breath as he could but felt no relief. The feelings of trepidation and foreboding from earlier were still there.

He gripped the wood molding harder. Time slowed, breath seemed suddenly illusive, his vision was blurring…

"Darling!"

Arthur felt his lungs rapidly inflate and his eyes scatter to the left and over his shoulder. His heart was beating rapidly. He felt as if he'd been physically shaken. Sound and feeling were restored.

Coming up the unleveled death trap stairs at the right end of the hall was a dirty blond man whose image screamed 'brawler'. Tattoo's scattered his body and he looked as normal in a smile as he did in a scowl.

"Eames," Arthur muttered in greeting. When the other man's grey-blue eyes looked tauntingly back at him Arthur immediately coughed and scowled. "Don't call me that. You're even more annoying than usual when you're trying to be cute."

"I don't _try_ at anything, darling."

"Don't call me that," Arthur scowls "Jackass."

Eames retaliates with, "light of my life?"

"Asshole."

"Soulmate."

"Smartass."

"Lover."

Arthur paused and tried to glare menacingly at the other man, who of course just smiled in response. "…Idiot."

Eames stepped closer to Arthur, who resisted the urge to melt further back into his open door. He wished Eames would look away; the weight of the man's eyes staring into his own was something that always made him uncomfortable. Eames never just _looked_ at someone; he read them like a script.

Glass shattered downstairs and a raucous shout went up. Arthur pretended to be distracted but Eames refused to waver. Arthur's hands anxiously picked at the door casing.

"You look under the weather, love." The statement was made softly, a logical approach in case his words were rebutted with rancor. Eames' shoulders slumped back, he was trying to appear as non-threatening as he could.

Arthur's spine stiffened without warning. The soft, concerned tone in Eames' voice had sent Arthur back to the murmured promises and whispered confessions of last night. It was something he was altogether unready to face. He hadn't expected what had happened between them to happen, and he didn't know where it left them now.

"Tonight's going to be a long night," Arthur said in lieu of a proper response.

Eames grimaced, allowing Arthur to avoid his probing for the moment "I'm on the floor tonight."

Arthur would have felt bad for Eames if he didn't already know that his night was going to be infinitely worse. Working the floor was always grueling and tedious: mixing with the guests, being forced to entice them, being picked by one and then another like an ironic spoof of high school dodge ball. Arthur's night would be spent entertaining gang initiates, sadists really.

Behind them the stairs creaked with hurried footsteps. Arthur had half expected it to be their "employer," Saito. His shoulders had already seized up in self-defense, and Eames had taken an unconscious step in front of Arthur.

The head that popped up above the stairs was a blond one instead, lighter than Eames' own hair. A man who needed to be strongly disillusioned followed the head and after a few seconds the body was moving rapidly past the two men loitering in the hall. The newcomer didn't even glance in their direction, focused solely on a door at the other end of the hall.

Eames and Arthur both followed the man's path with their own narrowed eyes. Arthur looped two fingers through his belt loops, pulling at them in nervous agitation. Eames knocked a tattooed shoulder into Arthur's, trying to dislodge the stoic anger that had settled over the other man's face.

"Every time he gets paid," Arthur snarled lowly "like fucking clockwork."

Eames didn't put his hands on the nape of Arthur's neck, attempting to rub soothing circles into the skin there, but his words had the same effect. "Can't blame a bloke who's trying to fill the hole of something he lost, can we?"

It was times when Eames said startlingly compassionate things like that that Arthur was able to feel pity for people again. Dominic Cobb had been a regular client of the establishment for three months; each time he came he tried to drown the memories of his late wife killing their two beautiful children and then killing herself.

Arthur supposed the man deserved pity, but then again; lots of people deserved pity and never got it.

"I heard she was trying to 'wake the family up'," Arthur murmured distractedly, his lithe frame was straining to look down at the hall where the hunched form of Cobb had stopped at a door.

"You Americans are fond of saying that curiosity killed the cat, pet." Eames stuck a finger under Arthur's chin and then urged his face to turn away from the direction he was peering. If Arthur felt that the touch was oddly stern and reprimanding then he didn't voice it.

"As if British idioms are so much better," he scoffed "I'll never understand the origination of 'pear-shaped'."

"No imagination," Eames replied in mock-somber amusement.

Before Eames could truly appreciate the way Arthur's enticing shoulders had begun to relax they both heard the soft pitter pat of footsteps. Eames could have cursed at the way Arthur's head whipped over his shoulder. His immediate attention was on the brunette coming their way.

Eames didn't know Ariadne as well as Arthur did. She was a nice enough girl but the decidedly dazed smile that she carried around with her lately was more than just disconcerting and uncanny. The girl acted as if she'd been broken, and couldn't be bothered to be put back together.

"My client's early," she said as if it were some big joke. She nodded her head back to where Cobb was slinking into her bedroom.

Arthur reached forward and straightened the silk scarf that was falling off Ariadne's shoulders. "He can wait down stairs with all the others."

Ariadne waved him off, but leaned forward to wrap herself around Arthur's middle, looking for the life of her as if she couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

"Arthur's right," Eames said, trying to catch the girl's eye. He adopted a roguish grin to try to convince her "As much as it pains me to admit it, the stick in the mud really is. The night hasn't started; your client's place is down 'round the parlour."

"Aren't the English supposed to have a sense of propriety?" she laughed. She leaned forward out of Arthur's arms and towards Eames. She over balanced and Arthur righted her; she didn't even appear to notice. "You can't leave a guest to wallow on their own."

"They're paying to wallow." Arthur replied bluntly.

Eames thought the way that Arthur played over protective brother to Ariadne was tragic. The man was going to be crushed when Ariadne finally got her wish and faded out of life.

Ariadne just shook her head back and forth slowly. She laughed again as if they were too incompetent to understand her thoughts. She turned from them with a fond look. "Time to get to work."

"Wait," Arthur said; he turned on a heel and strode back into his room. When he reappeared scant seconds later Eames felt his eyebrows shoot up. He was surprised, but he observed what was happening with the eye of a man who did so frequently.

"Here," Arthur thrust out a hand full of brightly colored condoms. When Ariadne didn't raise her hands to take them but instead looked at them in confusion, Arthur made a low grunt of annoyance in his throat. He forced Ariadne's hands to close around the little packets.

Eames tightened his jaw, not willing to make the easy quip about how in a brothel it didn't take much to find a condom or two. They flowed in and out of the rooms like water. Why did Arthur feel the need to bequeath them?

Arthur's let his gaze linger on Eames. A few days ago he may not have let Eames hear what he was about to say to Ariadne, but after last night he felt that he could make some presumptions.

"Don't throw them out this time."

Eames decided that he shouldn't make any conclusions from the statement and should instead back away from where his mind was headed. Quickly.

Not quickly enough.

Eames' curiosity peaked. Why wasn't Ariadne using condoms like a good little prostitute?

That _damned_ smile bloomed across Ariadne's face again and she reached up to cup Arthur's face with a single condescending palm. "Oh Arthur, I wish you'd just let me die already."

Eames sucked in a breath between his teeth. Well, _that_ was unexpected.

Eames was watching for the shattered look that crumbled on Arthur's face when Araidne turned away and made her way back to her waiting client. It was almost imperceptible, but the way Arthur's throat constricted was indication enough.

Eames' arms circled Arthur's waist with hesitation. He was clearly leaving the other man the ability to back off, or at the very least punch him. However, Arthur accepted the embrace. If that wasn't indication enough to Eames' of how horrible Arthur was feeling, then he didn't know what was.

"Arthur," Eames sighed into the brunette hair under his chin.

For a moment Arthur's fingers clenched into Eames' side, digging painfully against his hips. Eames thought Arthur might be on the verge of a sob (or a knee to Eames' solar plexus, really) but the man loosened his grasp, took a breath, and then withdrew.

"You've got to stop using women's shampoo," Arthur grunted, his voice was rough with unshed emotion "You're starting to smell like honeysuckle for Christ's sake."

Eames grinned and leaned back on his heels, knowing how he was expected to respond. "I'll show you honey_suckle_, mate."

Arthur chuckled and punched Eames' left shoulder, much more tenderly than normal. "Ass," he said, and if Eames dared to hope then he would dare to say that the tone Arthur used was fond.

A cry went up from underneath them and Eames stepped back, disappointed. "Time to get to it, then."

Arthur nodded, noticing Eames was already dressed for his night on display. Tight pants and an unbuttoned dress shirt were a whore's uniform, and Eames wore them well. He was never long without a paying customer.

Eames winked and put a finger up in the air, both quieting Arthur from speaking and telling him to stay. He grinned and reached into his back pocket. A purple aluminum packet went flicking through the air at Arthur the next second.

Arthur caught the condom with a delicate flick of his wrist. He raised an eyebrow at Eames with a practiced look of unimpressed disinterest.

The Englishman snaked out a hand and caught the other man's wrist with ease. Taking care to make sure their gazes were locked he rolled the wrist caught in his grasp and brought its soft underside to his lips. Brushing a kiss across the skin he then straightened and released Arthur, turning to slink down the stairs.

"Make sure to take your own advice, pet!" Eames shouted back up the stairs. "I'll be thinking of you tonight!" Arthur could feel the playful grin that went along with the statement; he'd had the same grin pressed into his neck for the first time the night before. A few moments later, Arthur could hear another roar go up in the main room that no doubt signaled Eames' arrival there.

Arthur thumbed the package. After a moment he rolled his eyes, even though Eames could neither see nor hear him "You always say that." He turned and disappeared into his room. It was time to get dressed.

X-_X-_X

Eames' stance was relaxed. The air of animalistic sexuality that he was able to exude just by leaning on the wall was his usual. The way he rolled a toothpick between his lips and let his shirt wrinkle in just the right way was his normal display. The interest with which he looked at everyone in the room with was his common façade.

He was working.

There were clients and workers mixed throughout the room. Petite girls who got caught up with the wrong people lounged in laps, pretty boys who had thought they were looking for something exciting were fawning over the powerful looking men, and tired smiles and the thrill of experience loitered behind every other worker's face.

Eames didn't fit in with any of them. Of course, he was here for a quite different reason than they were. He sighed and eyed the floor; it was prudent not to let his annoyance show on his face. Eventually a middle-aged businessman with one too many regrets or a housewife seeking a thrill would purchase his services for a few hours and the night would finally be on its way.

A low hum went up to his right and Eames managed to slant his eyes just in time to see who was making their way into his personal space. One of the pretty boys. Of course, just what the bloody night needed. Simpering twats the lot of them.

The blue eyed, aristocratic featured creature that tried to catch his eye belonged to one of Eames' "colleagues." He was a boy whose father had sold him to Saito due to some poncy, paltry affair. Nothing but a city boy to be used and abused.

"Robert, having a pleasant evening, are we?"

"Mmm," Robert didn't commit to any one response or the other. "I'd make a bet it'd be better if a client decided they wanted the both of us again."

Eames didn't hide his grimace "Oh yes, it was quite lovely the last time."

"Quite," Robert agreed. He grinned at Eames. Robert was fond of ignoring Eames' sarcastic brush offs. Eames was fond of imagining the many ways Robert could trip down the stairs.

Before Robert could make another mock-subtle hint to his wants Eames leaned off the wall "Well, to work then. Needs must, of course."

Robert just melted into the wall as though he thought Eames was playing hard to get.

Eames steered himself in the direction of the neediest looking bloke, but Saito caught his shoulder on the way there.

When he didn't immediately say anything Eames shifted on his left foot so that he could face him. "How's your night, boss man?"

"I need you in a line up," Saito's words were crisp, the slight tilt of his chin suggesting a no-nonsense way of doing business. The man was firm with his employees, but not without kindness.

"Then in the line-up I shall be," Eames agreed wearily. It meant they had a VIP in the house for the night, someone who was going to get their pick of the best. Eames felt like a drink.

X-_X-_X

"_Car ma vie_," Ariadne sang quietly into the silence of her small bedroom. The lighting was dull and Ariadne toyed with the idea of spilling the candle and seeing if it could light the linens.

A low groan against her neck distracted her.

Ariadne smiled down at the head that was resting on her bosom. The man was half asleep, but in a few minutes he'd decide both to pay more and stay longer or leave like he was supposed to.

"Such a pretty song, Mal," he whispered into her throat.

She felt a chuckle of amusement reverberate through her body. What a silly man this was with his delusions.

"_Car mes joies_," Ariadne sang, the only vocalized response she had, "a song I learned in school."

Apparently hearing Ariadne's voice speak in clear, coherent English was startling to the man. He snapped his head up and peered at her with bleary, wild blue-green eyes.

"Mal?" he asked. His voice was small like a child's, and wrecked with regret.

"_Non_," Ariadne said delightedly, palming his chin.

Dom ran a hand over her hip, then looked confusedly from side to side. He was out of the bed the next moment, gathering clothes in a hurry. He was back to normal for now, shaken awake by his regrets.

Ariadne rolled onto her side and watched bemusedly as he left a scattering of bills as a tip on her nightstand. Ari grinned when she noticed that they landed next to the unopened packets of condoms that Arthur had forced her to take.

Ariadne rolled onto her back, dazed. She hoped Arthur wouldn't be _too_ mad at her.

X-_X-_X

Eames supposed he should be grateful that it was a low self-esteemed female business executive who picked him out of the lineup instead of a client with more violent predilections. A couple hours of completely bending to the woman's every whim and he'd be free.

Robert's input on the lineup had been less than appreciated though. He'd made a lascivious comment about "Oh, wouldn't two gentlemen for the evening be even better?" and Eames had spent a horrified moment thinking she was going to take him up on it.

They were in a room especially reserved for VIPs like the woman. She'd introduced herself shortly as Anna Lynch and had spent the next moments detailing how she wanted her night to be. It had been done with the absolute, unimaginative finesse of a woman who put financial portfolios together for a living.

Eames had been coy where he was supposed to, he'd been charming when it was required, and now he was down to the usual business of pumping in a steady rhythm between her spread out thighs. Eames tried to think of something a bit more interesting than the how the wall border was peeling in the corner.

Eames hadn't lied earlier when he'd told Arthur he'd be thinking of him. It was something that got him through the most draining of customers. Arthur may have thought it was nothing except flirtation, but it was much closer to being Eames' personal life preserver than to a joke.

Like now: with this client. All he had to do was envision a sharper set of hips and he could feel his pulse quicken. Imagining her hair shorter and darker had him quickening his pace. Hearing, instead of her demure moans, guttural groans had him closing his eyes to imagine more.

It had been like a game for the longest time, his open want for the other man. Eames needed interaction with him on a daily basis. Eames needed to see him look at him to get through the day.

It was always simple. Eames flirted; Arthur resisted.

Until the night before.

Anna let out a shout and dug her hands into Eames' shoulder and the small distraction was enough to have his eyes snap open and out of his usual fantasy. A few moments longer and Eames' job was complete. His client fell into the sheets in an exhausted sprawl.

Eames let himself roll to the side, catching his own breath. Unbidden, his eyes closed again. It was always Arthur he saw.

Last night it had been Arthur's hands that had scraped down his back for the first time. It had been Arthur's mouth attached to his own, absolutely sincere in the things that simple touch promised. Eames had been able to choke out fragmented declarations into Arthur's ears while being able to see the way Arthur looked back at him with every uttered word.

It has been _real_ last night. It was the most real thing that Eames had felt in a very long time.

Too bad he wasn't sure where they were supposed to go from there. The fact that they fucked other people for money every night wasn't exactly conducive to a healthy relationship. On top of that, Eames knew that Arthur didn't belong here with the rest of them. Arthur was _more_ than this life.

"Thanks, for—you know."

Eames flicked his right eye lid open. Ms. Lynch was back in her impeccable dressings, and was holding a wad of cash out to Eames. Eames let a smug grin catch her off guard before reaching up to clasp the money.

He laid a kiss on the back of her knuckles, tugging the bills from between her fingers. "Anytime, love."

Saito _loved_ repeat customers.

When the door closed, Eames let every mannerism and lopsided grin from the last couple of hours fall right out of him. Breathing deeply, he released the shattered sigh he'd been holding in all night, and the lithe brunette that was sure to be just one floor up was back on his mind within moments.

If Eames was being completely honest then he'd admit that there really wasn't ever a time where Arthur _wasn't_ on his mind.

X-_X-_X

It had taken Arthur nearly three minutes to pull the simple cotton pajama pants over his hips. It had taken an additional two for him to convince himself that getting up and crossing the room to pull on an undershirt would be worth hiding the bruising hand prints across middle. He had little energy left after that, and simply lay back horizontally across his bed, the back of his head to the door.

Arthur actually had difficulty remembering whether the group of "gentleman" had consisted of five or six men. He thought it was five, but he couldn't be sure. His state of exhaustion hinted that maybe it had really been six.

It's not like it mattered, though. He was still bruised and raw, lying on sweaty, filthy sheets whether it was five or six men. He was still a whore living in a brothel no matter if it was five or six men.

Street gangs from the area liked to do that. It was some kind of twisted concept that they operated on. Full dominance: if you could dominate a man then you were seen as strong enough to run with a gang. Initiation tended to be taken out on someone like Arthur, who simply looked like he could be a weaker man than many of them.

Arthur snorted into his arm. He was too tired for his train of thought. _Idiots,_ _the lot of them_. Let some two-bit gangbangers pay Saito to take away Arthur's dignity. Arthur could take it.

A knock sounded on his door, rattling its weak frame. Arthur managed to roll his eyes upward to contemplate, upside down, the likelihood of it being someone to whom he actually would be willing to talk to. Arthur decided probably not, and that the effort to get out of the bed was really too much anyway.

Arthur supposed people, and by people he meant Eames, knew him too well at this point though, because the door swung open a moment later anyway.

'Oh,' Arthur thought distractedly 'I forgot to lock the door.' Not that it mattered. Eames was just as likely to come through a weakly locked door anyway. He'd come through a strongly locked door, for that matter.

Arthur wasn't prepared for the way that Eames simply stood with the door open, looking for the life of him that he was all at once bracing himself and restraining himself.

A few moments into that routine, Arthur rolled his eyes, and rolled onto his stomach with a sigh so that he could look at Eames "What?" he asked impatiently.

"Good God, Arthur," Eames choked out, his eyes widening far more than they ever had "How many of the bloody bastards were there?"

'Huh,' went through Arthur's head next 'That must mean that the bruises on my collar bone are starting to show.'

Arthur flicked a stray hair out of his eyes, seemingly apathetic. It'd hurt a lot more than the bruises did for him to show Eames that he was just as miserable as he looked. As weak.

Eames was honest to God thankful that he hadn't released the door handle; he was afraid that if he didn't have the door handle to grasp angrily, then he probably would have put a hole through the wall. He wasn't sure if Arthur was really as blasé as he appeared and simply didn't realize the extent to which he looked thoroughly brutalized, or whether he was attempting to pretend.

Eames continued to stand there in perplexed silence while he slowly cataloged the hurts he could see on Arthur's skin. It was a wonder the man could talk with how black and blue his throat looked, his arms had what looked like a couple welts forming, and on every single one of Arthur's other appendages there were _multiple fucking hand-shaped bruises._

"Five or six," Arthur finally said, his eyes averted from Eames "I can't really remember."

"Fi—five or six?" Eames very, _very_ quickly stopped himself from shouting in pure, unadulterated wrath. Whose right was it to treat Arthur in such a way? Just because they were paying didn't mean they could do these things. Didn't mean that Saito had to _let_ them do these fucking things.

"Eames," Arthur said, pleading and begging in a word, "you have to let it go, it's over. I'm not dead."

"Darling," Eames said, attempting to get a calm and steady breath, "I never would never have let you be alone tonight if I thought for one second that you would be handled this way."

"Nothing you could have done," Arthur replied. He was stubborn but Eames could finally detect the way that his hurt throat was making Arthur raspy. "This is our _job_ Eames, it's who we are."

"I would have done _something_," Eames declared "I would have wrung every one of their necks is what I would have done!" 

"Yes," Arthur said dryly, "because prison orange suits you _so_ well, and I suppose a jumpsuit isn't worse than any of your normal clothes."

"Do _not_ be unaffected like this Arthur," Eames said, probably more loudly than he intended. The door knob gave a dangerous rattle where his right hand was still clenched dangerously around it "How can you pretend that those gits, those pieces of human sewage, didn't do what they did?"

"I'm not pretending, Eames," Arthur said quietly, picking at a thread on the worn out blanket. "I just can't afford to remember right now."

The very end of the sentence came out in a whisper, and Eames finally released the doorknob. He let out a breath and nodded his head even though Arthur wasn't looking at him to see. Eames ran a tired hand through his hair. He suddenly felt much older than he was.

From outside the still open door uneven footsteps sounded as they got closer. Both men watched in detached interest as Cobb's disheveled form went stalking by. He was curled in on himself as he walked; slumped in defeat.

Eames took half a stride backwards and leaned far enough out the door that he could see Ariadne drunkenly watching Cobb disappear down the hallway, with nothing but a peach sheet wrapped around her. Eames turned on his heel and quietly shut the door.

The Englishman wasn't honestly sure what next to say to Arthur, the man whose every thought and whim were things upon which Eames loved to dote upon. If he wasn't allowed to take care of Arthur, then what in God's name was he still doing there?

"Honeysuckle."

"What?" Eames replied, his brow furrowing. He felt like having a cigarette. Or three. Half a pack might suit.

"You smell like honeysuckle again. You girl."

Eames grinned as widely as he could in this situation. The light banter was something with which they showered each other with, as necessary as affection. "I smell marvelous and you know it."

Arthur wrinkled his nose "You always shower immediately, yet you're the one who insists that _I_ have obsessive disorders."

Eames humor diminished from its already low tide. This argument was an old one. "I want to wash their filth off me as soon as I can."

Arthur shifted his eyes and made an acknowledging noise but didn't look back up at Eames until the other man had shifted closer to run a hand along his chin, gently tilting his face upwards. "You'd think you'd want their blasted filth off you, too, the way they treat you."

"I want to be able to feel my life's regrets," Arthur murmured, sounding for all the world as if he were quoting someone. He cupped Eames' hand then dipped his own lower to brush across the bruises on his neck. He was satisfied when a dull ache shot through his body. He wanted so badly to sit up and just lean forward and wrap himself up in Eames.

Eames' grip on Arthur's chin tightened reflexively. Eames finally sat down on the bed and huddled forward just enough so he could rest a hand comfortably atop Arthur's head. Arthur leaned into the touch easily.

Eames' eyes moved to look around the room; they were prickling with more emotion than Eames felt was strictly safe. His eyes settled on the sheets and blankets the two of them were atop.

"These sheets," Eames said. His voice broke and he had to cough before he repeated himself again "These damn sheets need to go. Disgusting's what they are."

Arthur didn't respond.

Eames clapped his palms on his knees and rose as though it were the beginning of a great plan. "And you are going to go and take a hot shower, pet."

Arthur groaned low in his throat. "I'm comfortable here, but thanks," he replied sardonically.

Eames pushed at him until Arthur was in an upright position. "Go on; take a shower, love. Do it for me, hm?"

"You always ask me to do that," Arthur complained, still resisting "Every morning you come up here it's 'Oh pet, dearest dove, why don't you go be a good lad and shower?'"

Eames smiled widely, a bubble of heat moving its way between his stomach and his chest. "I don't think I've actually called you 'dearest dove', Arthur, but thank you for the inspiration."

Arthur felt the tips of his ears heat. Trust him to go a bit far when he's attempting a joke.

"And your accent is atrocious. You sounded more like Sean Connery."

Arthur laughed. It hurt his throat, but damn did it make a bunch of other things feel _so_ much better. There was so much more than just history between the two of them. They'd managed to survive together in this damn house, watching others who weren't strong enough just break down around them.

Arthur let Eames wrap an arm around his shoulders, a hand settling at the nape of his neck to rub soothing patterns there.

"Go take a shower, Arthur; you'll feel so much better," Eames promised, sincere "And I'll give the sheets a changing before you get back. Sound like a deal?"

"No," Arthur replied, rolling his eyes, "it actually sounds a bit more like a coup d'état against me, but I'll go if it'll get you to shut your mouth for five minutes."

Eames smirked, small and gentle, and moved as Arthur rose from the bed.

"Just don't think I'm using that God awful honeysuckle shit," Arthur threw over his shoulder, making his way unsteadily from the room. He was barefoot.

Eames settled into the task of stripping the sheets, avoiding the more sodden of spots. He realized the two of them had vastly different ideas about what a shower after a guest meant. Eames couldn't wait to wash them away; to become himself again. Arthur was different. Arthur thought he needed to punish himself and keep them on him. He relived every memory of them for hours just because their scent clung to his bed and his hair.

Eames didn't know over what Arthur was punishing himself, but he knew that he wanted to know desperately.

Eames had only had trouble with washing a person away once, and that had been almost an entire day ago- yesterday, when he'd crawled from Arthur's arms. It had been inexcusably hard for Eames to go through with washing away Arthur's scents and touches just so he could prepare for a night with someone else.

Eames settled onto the stripped mattress, a spare blanket thrown over it for now. He'd probably be able to search around for clean sheets closer to nightfall, before their routine started again. Just having those wretched linens shoved in the corner and off the bed was blessing enough for now.

He settled a hand quietly against his temple, attempting to smooth away the tension gathering there- Christ if he wasn't still inordinately furious at the still smoldering image of those bruises around Arthur's neck. Just because Saito knew Arthur could take it didn't mean that he should have to.

None of them should _have _to. That thought alone always sent Eames into an endless flurry of guilt, confusion, and unbelievable anxiety.

Eames let the minutes tick away, and Arthur returned soon enough.

Arthur opened the door wearily. He caught sight of Eames still sitting on the bed and let out a grateful smile. Eames managed to return the smile weakly, but watched Arthur toss a towel and bathing supplies in the direction of his small dresser numbly.

Arthur eventually wandered over to sit next to Eames. He was even more silent than Eames remembered him ever being these days. Their knees touched together tentatively. Eames let the shock of the touch jar his mind into action.

They were _together_ in this. They were _better_ than this.

"Fucking hell, Arthur," Eames snapped. He looked at Arthur, a mixture of spontaneity and blatant want on his face "Are you ready to get out of here yet?"

Arthur looked away immediately. He chose, instead of responding to Eames, to stare dispassionately at his hands resting on his knees. Eames was crossing a line; he was heading towards a subject they never talked about.

Eames couldn't take it. He stood abruptly. His need for a cigarette intensified.

"I mean, bloody hell, those fancy university degrees of yours could take you anywhere." It was a thought that wasn't new to Eames. Arthur, with all his finesse and sophisticated education, could be out of here in an instant if he chose to. He could be conquering entire nations by now if he had the motivation.

Arthur still refused to look at him. Eames refused to have that. He wasn't going to have a screenplay fight with the man; he was damn well going to force some sense into him. Eames patted Arthur's shoulders, ran his hands down the other man's arms, and finally tugged Arthur's hands into his own before the man finally looked up at him.

"Arthur," the Englishman began quietly with absolute seriousness, "when you first arrived here, I only needed a couple more weeks to get enough resources to make my way back to South London. Then I watched your annoyingly contrary, albeit perfect, arse follow Saito into the parlour. I watched him assign you your first client."

Arthur opened his mouth a few times before settling on a self-defensive expression and statement "I'm sure there's a point in there somewhere, Eames?"

Eames gripped Arthur's hands harder, resisting the urge to give the other man a vigorous shaking. "That was five months ago, Arthur."

"Oh."

"'Oh,' is right."

"You could make your own 'fancy university degree' Eames," Arthur tried to shake his head to clear it; Eames was sounding far too serious for Arthur to make perfect sense of the situation, "You know you could with all those skills you brag about half the time. You're not nearly as unintelligent as you generally look."

Eames indulged Arthur, rubbing the man's hands slowly between his own. The look on his face suggested he felt Arthur wasn't realizing some key point. "I could," Eames agreed "I could be in a nice, posh flat right now if I felt like it, but, mate, we're in this together. I don't know if you've decided to work it out yet, but I'm not leaving you alone any time soon."

Arthur stood. He tugged his hands out of Eames grasp then backed up the half a pace he had before his knees hit the edge of the bed. His face was screwed up in panic.

"No, Eames…"

"Arthur, it is as simple as walking out the door. It is literally one step in front of the other."

Arthur felt his breathlessness from earlier return. He knew it was a mistake to have slept with Eames the night before. It was a mistake to have given himself over to the man as completely as he had. It was a mistake to have hoped he deserved something better than what he'd been getting.

"Calm down, duck…."

Arthur didn't hear Eames' words. His eyes scrambled sideways, and he felt his throat constrict in a way that had nothing to do with the abuse it had suffered earlier. Arthur tried to breathe. He couldn't.

He couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't catch his _fucking_ breath.

"Arthur!" Eames shout was all of a sudden much closer. Large arms wrapped around Arthur, a hand making its way back to the nape of Arthur's neck to rub the same soothing motions he had wanted to use earlier.

Arthur licked his lips, then buried his head in the other man's neck. He let himself go lifeless against Eames. "Eames, I killed my sister. She's fucking dead and it's my fucking fault."

Eames didn't vocalize his stunning confusion as the words dropped from Arthur's lips but he knew he must have reacted physically because Arthur was pushing his way away from him within instants.

"Shit," Arthur cursed. He kept repeating the word over and over again like a mantra.

"What do you mean?" Eames blinked. He'd seen Arthur take very calculated swings at more than a few people but the man wasn't homicidal by any means.

Arthur quickened a glance Eames way before ducking around him to pace in the larger space in front of the door. "I was driving," Arthur hesitated, his words jerking out of his mouth "She was—she was in the passenger seat. She'd had a drink. I had to drive. I _had_ to drive…"

Eames didn't utter a sound. _This_ was the thing that had been controlling Arthur since the man had walked into this place. He let out a steadying breath and willed the man to continue. Eames dropped his arms to his side, making sure to give Arthur all the space he needed.

"There were a couple motorcyclists ahead of us," Arthur's voice was raging wildly out of control. It was shifting from chocked gasps to whispers and back again. "They were screwing around, it was dark out, they weren't thinking. I didn't notice them start to slide until too late."

Arthur stopped pacing before he noticed that there were thick, hot trails of tears making their way down his face. His only dignity was that it was silent. He was breaking down and weeping on the floor like he'd been tempted to do too many times before.

He rubbed frustratingly at his face. He should've cried at his sister, Catharine's, funeral. Their mother had. Cathy's husband had.

"I had to swerve," Arthur said. He felt so damned tired "I swerved left and it was _her_ side of the car that got crumpled against the tree. It should have been me, should have been me, _me_…"

"Arthur," Eames said, compassion and pity for the man lighting every one of his instincts. Knowing the man as he did suddenly everything made sense "It was an accident. It wasn't your fault."

Arthur laughed as if Eames were being purposefully ridiculous "I barely had a scratch on me." His hands and arms moved wildly as he began talking faster and faster "Her entire side of the fucking car was crumpled up like a can, but I didn't even have a fracture. God, Eames, her fucking blood was all over the car; her _hair_ got matted into the air vents. I fucking stared at it for forever until the paramedics got there. It was all I could fucking see for days."

"My mother never said it, when she came to the hospital," Arthur's entire being was vibrating with emotion. He wasn't sobbing, but he was getting more livid than Eames had ever seen him "But she didn't have to. I knew exactly whose fault it was. I can't believe I killed my baby sister."

Eames was out of his element farther than he figured he ever had been. The mates he'd run with in London, the brothers he'd fought with and for, they hadn't reckoned with emotions like this. They'd shoved them down in a pint, and spit them out in a fight.

Eames knew Arthur though.

Within a couple of breaths, Eames had Arthur cornered into the small room's wall- holding him against it firmly, not letting him run, not letting him take it all back.

"It. Was. Not. Your. Fault." Eames rested his forehead against Arthur's, making sure the man looked straight in his eyes with every word "There was nothing else you could have done except die with her, and what would that idiocy have accomplished, hm? Your mother losing two children, not very productive is it?"

Arthur protested, but Eames didn't let him continue further than that. "You are the most brilliant man I've ever met. You are also, and I apologize darling, you're also bloody naïve when you choose to be."

Arthur's wrists were being held firmly in Eames' grip so the Brit knew when Arthur's pulse picked up. It was anger.

"Ari's come here to find the easiest way to give up," Arthur exclaimed, "and I've come here to live with my regrets, to do as I deserve to do."

Eames held off the fierce rebuttal and instead leaned in to murmur just one phrase right into Arthur's ear "And what would that sweet sister of yours be thinking of you right now, hm?"

Eames let go and let Arthur stumble, wide eyed, off the wall.

For the next moments, there was silence.

Eames saw Arthur's mind fly through emotions like shame and guilt, saw it settle on anger a few times, and saw it begin to draw well thought out conclusions for itself. Eames fervently hoped the bull-headed man got the truth of things through his skull.

Finally, after too long a stretch of stress ridden silence, Arthur looked up and met Eames eyes voluntarily for the first time that morning. A look of uncertainty settled across his face.

"I don't know if I can walk out the door," Arthur admitted.

Eames paused to think. Eventually he decided that melodramatic humor, in light of the complete lack of alcohol in the room, was the best course of action.

"That is lucky, darling," Eames said lightly, smiling at Arthur's more than open honesty, "because there happens to be a decently sized window right here and available to us."

Eames followed through and actually strode over to the window, throwing it open with one muscled arm, and using the other to gesture vaguely to the city beyond. Eames allowed himself a grin "There's even a semi-sturdy fire escape."

Arthur's eyes brightened, his lips twisted up, and Eames watched in absolute fascination as the happiest dimples ever erupted out onto Arthur's cheeks. Arthur joined him by the window almost immediately.

"I don't know Mr. Eames," Arthur said, nodding to the city just starting to wake up outside "Do you think we can survive in that world out there?"

"Love," Eames said, brushing his lips across Arthur's own willing ones "I think that world out there should be worried around surviving us."

"Together then?" Arthur asked, leaning his body into the haven that Eames was proving to be.

"Always, darling."

**X-_X-_X**

_This is the first result of an entire summer spent doing nothing but reading every piece of Inception Arthur/Eames fanfiction I could get my hands on. I busted into Livejournal for the first time this summer and almost drowned in a puddle of my own inspiration_.

_I hope everyone that read has enjoyed, and thank you. This fic does mean a great deal to me. It's my inception baby._

_-AnimeSiren_


End file.
